Internet ads gone wild

Raggit · Fri 27/02/2004 14:35:32

The other night I was browsing the internet. I was looking around on this humor site.
When I left, I was bombarded with an army of popup ads telling me about their spyware remover software and how my computer could be infected.

Well, I natural started closing them. Then my CD-ROM drive pops open and they bring this message up saying the spyware could be controlling my computer. Like I'm some kind of moron. And I start thinking "Hey if I had been playing music in there or something that would've really ticked me off."

So I close the disc drive and close the popups. Well I'm presented with a screen that has no task bar. The only way out is to click their link. So, I hit ctrl alt delete and kick it's butt off my screen. Twice.

Now today, I find out that it made that stinking spyware add my HOMEPAGE!!!! IT CHANGED MY HOMEPAGE!!!! So now I'm really ticked off, hence this thread. I SAY WE BOMBARD THEM ALL WITH E-MAILS PIMPING OUR GAMES!!!!!!11!!!11

Thanks for allowing me to rant here.

Darth Mandarb · Fri 27/02/2004 14:41:41

Man ...

That shit is as bad as spam in my opinion.

I had this comedy skit in mind where I'm the defendent in a court room.

The judge asks "What're the charges?"

The prosecutor says, "He tortured and brutally murdered 10 spammers."

To which the judge would promptly reply, "I see no crime here ... case dismissed."

** gavel slams down **

They're the scum of the world and they deserve firey deaths and endless suffering in the lowest pits of hell.

[/rant]

Scummbuddy · Fri 27/02/2004 14:55:55

Next time one pops up without a task bar, you can probably also use Alt+F4

And for spyware, Spybot Search and Destory is A-Mazing http://www.safer-networking.org/

Esseb · Fri 27/02/2004 16:58:24

You should combine SS&D with AdAware for best effect: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

And don't use Internet Explorer, failing that at least install a popup remover of some kind. Just make sure it's not dodgy.

Squinky · Sat 28/02/2004 04:06:41

You know, I get that same thing from time to time...and I always get it removed....

But I cannot, for the life of me, get rid of my hijacked homepage!

I use an online antivirus, adaware, spybot, a registry cleaner, and if all else fails I have a program that lets me have more control over the startup and I'll go in and turn off everything I don't need....

But still...the page remains....Bah!

Ben · Sat 28/02/2004 04:55:29

Squinky: Have you tried loking in your browser plugins folder? I had a problem like that a while back, where my home page kept getting changed. Turns out there was a program running in my browser that was controlling it. If you're using IE (maybe that's another problem

), go to Internet Options, Settings, View Objects, and see if there's anything there aside from the usual Flash/Shockwave stuff..

Gregjazz · Sat 28/02/2004 05:13:14

What you're going to want to do is to:

1. Check in C: or whatever your main drive is and look for any new unknown exes. To make sure it is not an important file, right-click on it and check its properties to find out if it is a Microsoft application, etc.

2. Run a search for .exes and put the access date to whatever day you started having that problem. If you forgot the date, just put in more general search terms, like "last week".

3. You can also hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and go into the 'processes'. Use this and #2 to round down what exe is causing the problem.

Now you should be able to set your homepage back to the default.

I've heard many stories of people going to humor sites and getting their computers messed up. To prevent it from happening again, be sure to set your internet privacy to at least 'medium', and get some protection software.

Hope that helps.

Squinky · Sat 28/02/2004 05:14:09

Yeah, theres a bunch of crap there, but I don't know what it all does, so I'm leery about deleting it....I deleted most though, and it still has my page hijacked...What would you guys recommend for a new browser? I'm tired of this crap...

MrColossal · Sat 28/02/2004 06:06:51

at the risk of being mocked by Esseb and LasNaranjas i'd recommend MyIE, Squinky.

They'd recommend Opera or Mozilla

MyIE is like a shell that goes ontop of IE and gives it tabs, popup blocking and a bunch of other shiz

i'm a fan

LGM · Sat 28/02/2004 06:44:57

Google Toolbar

Always a great tool against pop-ups. And convienient if you use google alot.

As for that homepage thing.. Yea.. Use MyIE2 or sth..

Peace

Squinky · Sun 29/02/2004 15:38:56

Google toolbar don't do it for me no more baby!

Yeah, I got that, but it was great at first. Now it seems to let like half in....I tried myIE and I'm scared....it's confusing loooking, but I'll keep trying. Then I guess I'll try out that new firefox one...

RickJ · Mon 01/03/2004 00:25:39

Just goto mozilla.org and download firefox, no more popups. Plus you can right clicl an image and block all images from the same serve.

edmundito · Mon 01/03/2004 06:34:50

The internet has ADVERTISEMENTS? I kind of forgot about it after using firefox for a while... not even those silly internet explorer-friendly ads that display on top of the page are displayed.

Other than that, you could get either the google toolbar, the yahoo toolbar, or the msn toolbar. they all block ads... but probably not those magical ads I was talking about on the previous sentence.

RickJ · Wed 03/03/2004 05:33:22

For anyone thinking abut giving FireFox a try, you may want to check out this link.

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/why/

MrColossal · Wed 03/03/2004 05:50:17

the main reason i use MyIE is because both Opera and Mozilla browsers didn't support middle mouse click move about the screen thingie...

then i got it to work in opera i think and then opera didn't display GIFs correctly, it sped them up wicked fast.

Las Naranjas · Wed 03/03/2004 09:46:16

It does work in Opera [the middle mouse thing] but eric's gif problem seems to be restricted to him. So in his case, he has to use MyIE2. And he loves Jannar.

The only real thing I don't like about MyIE2 is the fact that it's a polished turd. It has lotsa nice features, like those found in mozilla firefox and opera, but it still has lots of little niggly things that irritated me in IE, and it's also slower, like IE always has been. But since it's not a completely new program, it does have the benefit of working with those sites designed not to work with anything but IE, which Microsoft sees fit to create.

I haven't got anything against firefox, I only use Opera over it because I'm used to it, but Firefox would be good for the people trying to purge themselves of cracked software who can't stand the [relatively inoffensive] banner.

--edit--
It is really annoying when you use an IE system after getting used to mouse gestures and the like though.

Gilbert · Wed 03/03/2004 09:57:19

Well I think mouse gesture is crap, so I disabled it already. But I LOVE Opera, there're much more than that for you to use it!

And MyIE won't work obviously with my WIN95 comp at home, which I had striped it clean of M$IE long ago...

Timosity · Wed 03/03/2004 14:13:55

To be honest I don't know which browser I prefer, but I lean towards Opera, It's hard to design websites to account for them all, and the fact of different resolutions, font sizes, Whether you're computer is set to Large, Small or Custom size fonts, and other personal Browser settings.

When I was doing webdesign a few years ago, I used to think that IE was the easiest to design for & a challenge to make it work in Netscape etc, most people didn't consider the other browsers, but I think in the last few years, they are getting easier to get everything matched up, but I could be wrong.

These days I've been switching around with browsers just to see any advantages, but to be honest, IE with Google toolbar is just as good as any, I really don't know what people complain about, the only valid reason is you don't like microsofts monopolisation (fair enough though)

I don't like the Mouse gesture crap either, There's little things about Opera that I like eg. Paste and go, the best thing since Paste

I'll just stick with them all, including IE

AGA · Wed 03/03/2004 14:17:13

IE with Google toolbar is by no means the best one. Almost every browser is faster than IE, and almost every one has little things that make it nicer and easier to use. Plus most non-IE browsers do what the Google toolbar does, but automatically.

Blackthorne · Wed 03/03/2004 15:20:23

You know, I've got this weird problem with my IE.

If I type www.google.com in my browser window, it doesn't take me to google, but some other site that says "No website is configured for this address" and a logo that says "Cpanel" comes up...... Cpanel and WebHostManager links are at the bottom.... it's weird.